Stunning Span Architect designed housing, in a lake-side setting

History

Lakeside is built on ground that once was occupied by a single large house on Oatlands Drive, half way between Oatlands Village and Walton on Thames.It is not known when the house on our property was originally built, but in the late 1800’s it was called Harduemont and is clearly seen on the Ordnance Survey map of 1897. It is interesting to note that in that year Harduemont was the last house on the North side of Oatlands Drive prior to Walton Bridge. Our current neighbours Ridgemount, were shown as a gravel pit.

The 1901 census records reveal that Walter A Clark (a widower), a 42 year old East India Merchant, his 15 year old son Walter, daughters Maud and Margaret, together with housekeeper Marjory Somerville occupied the house. It appears that the family had Scottish ancestry.

In 1920 the property still retained the name of Harduemont and is clearly shown on the mapof that year. Eight new houses had been built down to the lane half way between the house and Walton Bridge. It is not known if these new houses were named or given street numbers but all occupied spacious plots of land, although not on the same scale as the original houses such as Harduemont.

In the next 5 years houses were built all the way from this lane to Walton Bridge, so completing the construction of residential homes on the North West side of Oatlands Drive all the way from the village of Oatlands to Walton on Thames.

At some stage between the 1920’s and the 1960’s the house name had changed to Lake House and had acquired the additional line in its address of 58 Oatlands Drive, Weybridge.

The new house name reflects the Broadwater Lake, sometimes referred to as ‘The Broad Water’, which is to be found at the bottom of the garden. This area of water, which is nearly a mile long, was devised and landscaped by the Duke of Newcastle and stretches all the way back to Weybridge. In the 19th century it seems to have served as a repository for Weybridge town’s sewage but in 1875 the ‘Inspector of Nuisances’ was able to report that the offending pipe had been cut off. It has proved to be a haven for swans, ducks, geese, moorhens and a variety of life. Beneath the waters Pike abounded in the now cleaner waters. In the winter after a hard frost the frozen lake was a popular venue for ice skating.

In 1962 Lake House was sold by its owners Hilda Morley Roberts and her husband Bernard Finch Roberts to Span Developments Ltd. of Richmond, Surrey.

Span Developments demolished the house and in its place built nineteen three-storey town houses. These went on sale in 1965 with the nine houses abutting Oatlands Drive costing £7,750 each and the ten facing the communal garden and Broadwater Lake costing £8,900 each.

One of the original purchasers from 1965 still lives in Lakeside and past residents have returned to re-purchase homes, such is the lure of our small community. A comparison of photographs taken in 1965 and 2004 shows how Lakeside has matured.

1965: You will notice the ‘for sale’ notices in the first floor windows. The walls which were initially blue were pained white in the 1980’s.

2004: The large cedar tree, which appears to be growing out of the top of the houses in the 1965 photograph, fell during a storm in 1986 completely blocking Oatlands Drive.

The Oatlands area was dominated by Oatlands Palace, which complimented Hampton Court Palace some 4 miles away. Henry VIII created the “Chase of Hampton Court” as a hunting park, which enclosed most of the villages of Elmbridge within it. In 1537 he began to build this great Palace on the site of a former mansion for the reception of his new Queen, Anne of Cleves. The links continues to this day, with one of the local schools being called Cleves School and one of the major thoroughfares names Oatlands Chase.

However, the Queen for whom it was built probably never lived here, and Henry himself only visited it occasionally, though there are some grounds for thinking that he may have secretly married his next Queen, Katherine Howard, in its chapel. After Henry’s death in 1547, the “Chase of Hampton Court” was ended by popular demand.

Only on rare occasions did his son, Edward VI, or his daughter, Mary I, go to Oatlands Palace, but Elizabeth I was frequently there with her court, either on one of her Royal Progresses through the country or to escape some prevailing epidemic in London. She often hunted, and spent considerable sums in making the place more habitable and comfortable.

James I and his Queen, Anne of Denmark, made Oatlands Palace one of their favourite residences, spending much money in reconstructing the building, making and planting new gardens and vineyards, and in founding “The King’s Silk Works”, where silk worms were bred to provide silk for weaving.

Charles I spent a great deal of time at Oatlands Palace and filled it with pictures and works of art. The Queen lived here during the King’s campaign in Scotland, and gave birth to her son, Prince Henry. During the Civil War, Charles I used Oatlands as a base occasionally. One of the first Cedar of Lebanon trees to be imported into England, said to have been planted to commemorate his birth, still stands on the old site of the palace, which is now the current Oatlands Park Hotel. One of these magnificent trees also forms the entrance to Lakeside.

In 1649, at the end of the Civil War, Oatlands Palace was sold to Robert Turbridge of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for the sum of £4,023 18s. 0d., and he promptly demolished it. Material salvaged from the demolition provided bricks to line the lock walls of the new Wey Navigation canal, one of the first canalised rivers in England to provide Guildford, the county town of Surrey, with access for its goods to the world via the Thames and London. The site later became part of the Oatlands House Estate and in 1922 a council estate was built over it.

The original Oatlands School, which was built in 1882 to accommodate 130 local pupils, was demolished in 1984 and the pupils transferred to the new school on the opposite side of St Marys Road. The Flintgate and the Prince of Wales Public Houses served the village, as they continue to do.

Oatlands Drive is the main thoroughfare between Weybridge and Walton on Thames. Both were crossing points of the River Thames, which at the time formed a main artery to London. The bridge at Walton on Thames had long been in place, in its various forms, whilst the ferry at Thames Street, Weybridge had linked the two shores for many centuries and allowed travellers to cross between the town and Shepperton, on the northern bank. A bridge in Weybridge also crossed the River Wey on the road to Chertsey, hence the town’s name.